IPv4 & IPv6 Oracle Application Server
Today I am going to cover totally different topic which may not be related to Apps DBA’s or DBA but if you are configuring Application Server (10g Rel 3 , 10g Release 2 or Oracle Applications 11i) then this post may be useful to you.
It is quite important for Apps DBA as Installing & maintaining Web Server (Oracle Application Server) is part of Oracle Apps DBA JOb. Lets discover basics of IPv4 , IPv6 requirement of second one & how it is related to Application Server.
What is IPv4 or IPv6 ?
IP stands for Internet Protocol & v for Version , so they are Internet Protocol version 4 & 6 resp. As per Wikipedia IPv4 was the only major network protocol used for Internet till IPv6 came.
Those who are from networking background can understand that out of 7 layers in OSI (I read this in my engineering course & now I understood what it means 😉 ) IP is at layer 3 i.e. Network level (You as DBA can ignore this if you don’t understand)
IPv4 addresses are 32 bit wide & since there are so many public IP’s (each public site is using one or more IP address like teachmeoracle.com) and now its time to extend these available IP addresses which is delivered via IPv6 for which addresses are 128 bit wide .
Moving to IPv6 means more IP addresses (More host/sites/machines or Internet) plus some additional benefits.
Why IPv4 or 6 important to Apps DBA’s ?
This is most critical paragraph for Apps DBA that why should I (as an Apps DBA) be interested in Networking or Internet protocol version , It because IPv6 support is available in Apache Version 2 & higher & Oracle HTTP Server (Application Server 10g Rel 1, rel 2, rel 3) are on Apache 1.3.X which still doesn’t support IPv6.
If you are trying to Install 10g Appliaction Server Rel1/Rel2 or Apps 11i , check if local host is in IPv6 address list like (::1 localhost ipv6-localhost ipv6-loopback) then remove it like (::1 ipv6-localhost ipv6-loopback)
Related Links
Steven Chan’s Post on IPv6 and the E-Business Suite